Defense Budget Alert

House Armed Services Committee Chairman Adam Smith (D-WA) said today he favors a $733 billion topline for defense spending, less than the $750 billion requested by the White House this week.

The Pentagon's fiscal year 2020 budget request includes a $9.2 billion "emergency fund" for military construction -- most of which is for a new wall on the southern border -- as well as funds to "backfill" projects being deferred to build the wall and funds for hurricane recovery.

Acting Defense Secretary Pat Shanahan is angling to become permanent Pentagon chief, with his closest supporters highlighting his role in key areas, like navigating internal politics to deliver a final Space Force proposal, helping to engineer billions in budget increases and working to pivot President Trump away from planned troop withdrawals in the Middle East that had initially alarmed military leaders.

The Pentagon's fiscal year 2020 five-year spending plan includes $10.5 billion to accelerate development and prototyping of hypersonic capabilities, a "significant" increase over prior plans. The move reflects a new policy goal of establishing U.S. military battlefield dominance by 2028, achieved in part by fielding a family of land-, sea-, and air-launched hypersonic weapons.

The Navy's new force-structure assessment, slated for release later this year, will "validate" the service's decision to retire a Nimitz-class nuclear-powered aircraft carrier early, according to the Navy's deputy assistant secretary for budget.

The Air Force's fiscal year 2020 budget proposes a flat F-35 procurement rate that would buy 48 jets per year across the future years defense program -- a reduction the service plans to offset by purchasing 80 Boeing-made F-15EX aircraft over that same period.

The Pentagon's fiscal year 2020 budget request includes a $9.2 billion "emergency fund" for military construction -- most of which is for a new wall on the southern border -- as well as funds to "backfill" projects being deferred to build the wall and funds for hurricane recovery.

In a major setback to Pentagon plans to accelerate development of a new ballistic missile defense interceptor to protect against North Korean and potential Iranian threats, the Missile Defense Agency is delaying development and fielding of the Redesigned Kill Vehicle by up to two years because the warhead blueprint is not ready for prototype manufacturing.

The Air Force's $165.5 billion fiscal year 2020 budget request -- a $10 billion increase over FY-19 -- would buy 48 F-35s, procure eight new F-15EX fighters, boost research and development efforts by more than $4 billion and fund the creation of a Space Force headquarters.